Happy Endings
by SyrenHug
Summary: Nico wants to die. And sticking your finger down your throat under fluorescent lights in a fancy restaurant moves the process along. Nico/Octavian.


Ugh. I was in an awful mood when I wrote this.

Warnings: Suicide, anorexia, bulimia, language. Allusions to sex.

Note: Octavian's out of character, but not as bad as he could've been.

* * *

It's always a love story.

They meet under insane and highly unrealistic circumstances. There's a sudden spark, a flush of skin. They go out or they have sex. Or, they just do both. And then there's a conflict- a fight over someone's who let their hand linger to long and then, then they have sex again. Cue happy music. Happily ever after.

But not really.

* * *

He likes to throw up. Everyone knows it. He's seen the dimming smile as they watch him flee to the bathroom after a nice meal. He's overheard the whispers of Percy, worried over his health. Occasionally, Annabeth will try to offer help. But he doesn't want it, especially not from her.

Nico wants to die. And sticking your finger down your throat under fluorescent lights in a fancy restaurant moves the process along.

Someone knocks against the stall door. He wipes his mouth, trying to gather the sweat coating his skin. "You okay in there?"

"Yeah." His voice husks. Leo jokes that he sounds like a smoker.

"Okay."

He hears the footsteps, the screech of the door and he shoves up from the floor and unlocks the stall. A guy leans on the wall. He's not looking up him, but he holds up a piece of gum and shoves it into his direction. Nico takes it.

"Thanks." The gum is minty and when the flavor hits his throat he winces.

The guy shrugs. His hair is blond, eyes a plain shade of blue. Not ugly, not particularly handsome. Just- plain. He fingers his jacket then washes his hand, watching his hands move under the water instead of the mirror. It wouldn't show him anything he doesn't know already anyway.

"Why do you do it?"

_Why_ is an interesting question. Because not everything has reason. Some things just are. And they always will be, without anything making them that way. He doesn't have to answer, but it slips from him. "I guess it's just like any another sad story. Why not?"

"You think you're hopeless and you'll keep wasting away for awhile until you see the light and get better. They'll call it a recovery. You'll get better. People like you always get better."

The guy says it levelly. It isn't angry or patronizing. He knows the end of the story like it's already been written. Nico smiles. He wonders if it's as empty as he feels.

"Maybe you're right."

He doesn't hope.

* * *

Octavian. That's the guy's name and he learns how to say in a hundred ways in the two months they spend getting to know each other. There's nothing overly immense about it. They find places to go and they stay there and sit. Sometimes they talk.

Nico learns that the other is in college studying History. He likes to argue about Mythology. Reprimand him for drinking alcohol in the middle of the day. Ask him questions he doesn't want to answer.

He acts like he doesn't see it. The way Octavian looks at him. Like he's an excavated jewel. It isn't like or love or lust, even. But it's fascination. And he's never held someone's attention before. No one has ever wanted to get to know him.

So he lets it happen. There are no conversations about his tight schedule in regards to food. The prominent bones in his face. The random shakes and shivers that last for minutes or hours depending. He lets Nico have the only thing he's ever gotten to keep.

"Your hair is soft."

He moans when fingers start to knead his scalp. He blinks into the smug curve of the other's mouth. "You're evil."

"Only a little."

He goes to sleep to the petting. And when he wakes up, the dark of Octavian's living room is the only thing washing over him. He goes the bedroom. The light under the door of the bathroom hurts his eyes.

"Tavi?" He whispers. There's a sharp noise, a gasp of breath that sounds as if someone has spent their whole life in water and only just came up for air. "You okay in there?"

The door opens a crack. He pushes it. Octavian is perched on the shiny tile floor, hair shielding his eyes. He looks a boy, then. All huddled together and torn apart with tears.

Nico swallows. "What do you want me to do?"

Octavian shakes his head, still forever an entitled prince demanding his way through life. "Kiss me."

He tastes like salt and blood, childhood dreams that will always come true if only anyone wanted them to. He murmurs reassurances that he wishes he could have heard when he needed them. _It's going to be alright, you're going to be fine _mingling into his mouth bitterly and Octavian laps them up. Takes them away.

Still. He doesn't hope.

* * *

He has one hand on the bed when he says, "You should get dressed."

The covers ruffle. Strikes of blue glint in answer to the light pouring through the room. It's late; almost one o'clock. Octavian has classes.

"I'm not going."

"Fuck that, Tavi." He isn't angry, but he feels like he should be. But the other only repeats-

"I'm not going."

Nico leaves. It's not his problem.

* * *

He starts eating. Toast in his stomach stretching him wide. Coffee on his lips; watering his veins. Octavian stares at him across the table. His shirt is wrinkled. "You're eating."

It's awful. Disgusting. He wants to cut himself apart and take it out. But he just looks at the floor. "And you're a genius."

"Okay, kid."

"I'm _one_ year younger then you."

Pale lips slant. "Sure thing, kid."

* * *

On his sister's birthday he goes home. Octavian follows him. He doesn't want him there, really, but he doesn't have the strength for an argument.

It's late when he gets angry. Plate smashing, hair pulling, crouched in a corner, angry. He looks up into blue strings of a curtain he's afraid of looking behind.

"Everyone's dead. My sister she's just gone and I'm here and I don't want to be."

"Nico."

"Just-" Something is searing, stinging his skin. Maybe it's the glass. "Don't."

"You have me." Octavian offers, in the same way he had once thrust a piece of gum in his hand. But his fingers are soft on Nico's face, brushing across his nose in a way that has him closing his eyes.

"This isn't love."

But they kiss anyway.

* * *

Nico likes water. Because it's nothing. He doesn't have to think about how much fat he's ingesting. If one swallow will add a pound, or if he'll get a chance to slip away to the restroom. Nothing. Emptiness that keeps you whole, that's what it is.

"We haven't seen you in awhile, Neeks." Percy's eyes are light, but he tracks the movements of his fork as he spins his pasta around.

Annabeth is beside him. The picture of perfection with her pretty smile and pretty eyes and pretty blonde hair. Beautiful. The truth is; one day he got tired of hating her and now he just doesn't care at all. Easy.

"Tavi and I have been hanging out."

Leo pipes up from his conversation with his girlfriend Calypso, "_Tavi_?"

"That's me." He hears the chair next to him screech and a huff as someone settles. Nico thinks this might be the first time in years that's he's genuinely flushed. "Octavian. Nice to meet you all."

"You too." Ever the polite one, Annabeth holds her hand out. "How long have you two been-"

"Jesus, fuck. No, we're not-"

"A few weeks."

They look at each other. Octavian's smile doesn't reach his face, nevertheless his eyes. He takes another sip of his water. Someone clears their throat.

"I have a joke." Leo winks.

Everyone groans. They continue on.

* * *

Sex.

He thinks it's disgusting- someone sticking so close and with the power to be so far. But sometimes Octavian kisses the birthmark in the inside of his thigh, slides fingers in him like he's something beautiful, sighs into his shoulders with a rough _you're so fucking-_ and he gets it.

He's cherished.

* * *

"Do you ever feel like breaking apart?"

"What do you mean?"

"Going insane. Screaming. Crying. Hurting in a way that everyone can see."

"Sometimes. But it's not like any one would be there to listen. To care."

"Yeah. Maybe you're right."

* * *

Nico sighs. "This is a terrible song."

"Don't doubt the power of Taylor Swift."

"I'm ashamed to know you."

"I'm going to marry you to this song." Is what the other says, bobbing his head to the radio, one hand on the steering wheel. So fucking different from his normally held back demeanor. Then again, Octavian is kind of a dick to everyone else but him.

He smiles when he realizes what's just been declared. "I'm sorry, but I think you might be missing a step in that process."

The stare he's gifted is challenging. "You doubt our love?"

"I'm not even going to dignify that, man."

"Well, fine." The hand on the gearshift is on his thigh. The noise that pours out of his throat just might be a squeal. "Nico di Angelo, will you marry me?"

"Besides the fact that we've only known each other six months, I'll have to decline. You're not my type."

Octavian blinks.

"I don't do blonds."

"I fucking hate you, kid." And Nico throws his head back and laughs.

* * *

Changes are inevitable. The side you part your hair on, the length of your nails. Things happen. You grow up, you learn to fuck up. You learn to let it go.

Octavian doesn't say anything. He eats, he sleeps, he moves. It should be fine.

But it's not.

Nico kisses him, a sweep of his lips in the dark, and it's awful. Compliant and patient. Not a kiss, but a surrender. He goes to bathroom afterwards and scrapes his finger down his throat. Stares at the tile for hours.

Maybe he asks himself why.

* * *

_Dear Nico,_

_You've got the weirdest fucking smile, kid. Like everything in you is rebelling against the curve of it. But for some reason it happens anyway. Your eyes don't light up. You don't have dimples. No crinkle of the nose. It's just a smile._

_You do it and you say, yeah, okay, Tavi in the way that you do; half mocking, half fond. I think that's what it's like for us. It could be many things, all at the same time. In the end, though, it's just what it is. Simple._

_I'm just as fucked as you are. And you never noticed. You never noticed_.

-Octavian

* * *

He's holding his phone, pursing his lips when he enters the closet. He's just gotten back from a weekend with Jason playing video games and Hazel is peppering him with questions about _someone's _whereabouts.

"I don't know. He's supposed to be here. We talked two hours a-"

The phone hits the floor with a clatter. Nico doesn't move. Then he does. He picks up his phone off the ground slowly and leaves the apartment.

* * *

He doesn't go to the funeral. His friends do. They didn't really know Octavian, but they didn't mind him when he wasn't being a total prick.

Years go by and he doesn't get better. He isn't worse then before. He just stays the same. There's a place in him that screams. Gets mad about it and hates. It wasn't love. But it could've been.

They find him on his bed. A pill bottle draped over the pillows.

Everyone wants to make it less by saying it was his grief over losing Octavian that drove him to do it. They want to make it a fairy tale with glitter and gold. Neat packaging. It's not, it's just-

The end.

* * *

*sighs*

Don't ask.


End file.
